“Victims of the migrant route are forced with difficult decisions once they return to the country. Often times deportees are shunned by their communities, becoming internally displaced and unable to return to their homes. Solidarity groups have taken up the call to help the thousands of deported migrants who come back to an even more difficult situation than the one they left; one such group helps migrants find employment and attempts to help those injured by the Bestia recover a sense of self by donating prosthetic limbs.

Poor support from the current government and an endless stream of deportations by Washington and Mexico City are creating the conditions for an even greater crisis among the migrant community. People who have been deported, even those who have survived life traumatizing events on the route, will not sit around and wait for things to change. As one recently returned man told me, “I don’t have a choice but to turn back and go to El Norte.”